Retail banking in India is currently experiencing a fierce competition as public sector banks, private sector banks and foreign banks are trying to perform their best to expand their respective retail market share. If a bank is incapable of satisfying customers' expectations, it will lose customer-base which, in turn, will result in contraction of market share and adverse impact on profitability. Customer expectations and the need for quality services have substantially increased. As customers become better educated, they demand new products, better and more reliable delivery, as well as more responsive services. As a consequence, to improve competitiveness, banks have to understand customer needs and expectations and satisfy their customers by providing better products and services. Against this backdrop, the present study has been undertaken to analyse the service quality dimensions of the public sector and private sector banks in Erode District of Tamil Nadu.

This work is the output of post graduate research study carried out by the first author who has collected data from the field in line with the objectives set forth for the study and the research design contemplated for the study. The second author is the Chairman of Advisory committee for the Post Graduate research work of first author and guided him in designing the study and facilitated him throughout the study in terms of fixing objectives, reviewing literature, designing data collection tool, data collection, tabulation of data, analysis, interpretation and report writing. The third author is the member of advisory committee for the first author for his thesis work who facilitated him to get his data analyed using SPSS.17